Activision Classics

Other products by Activision

Product Features

• This baby's fully loaded with 30 of your all-time video game favorites!
• In the first and largest arcade collection of its kind, Activision Classics gives you all the gameplay of the original Atari 2600 games - now for your Playstation game console.
• Activision Classics: It's serious old-school fun.

Product Details

• ASIN: B00003E4GD
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,285 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

Editorial Review
For those of you with fond memories of the Atari 2600--the granddaddy of home video game systems--this retro collection of first-rate titles from Activision is a must-have. This comprehensive disc features a whopping 30 games, including hits such as Pitfall, one of the best games ever made for the Atari 2600, and lesser-known (with good reason) titles such as Cosmic Commuter. As an added bonus, you can listen to audio CDs during gameplay. We recommend music from the early 1980s for the full "turn back the clock" effect.

But if your video gaming experience doesn't date back to the early Reagan era, you should probably take a pass on A Collection of Activision Classic Games for the Atari 2600. By today's standards, the Atari 2600 is about as technologically dated as you can get, and the rudimentary gameplay and primitive graphics and sounds of its games aren't likely to win over any new fans. --Joe Hon

Pros:

• Comprehensive collection of first-rate Atari 2600 games
• Ability to listen to audio CDs while playing games

Cons:

• Little to no appeal outside of older fans of video games

Product Description
Relive Video Game History! / For Playstation Memory Card - 1 blocks

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for nostalgia, but some flaws, August 28, 2000

By	retrowens (Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

I borrowed "Activision Classics" from one of my friends awhile back and for the most part I was impressed. I grew up playing the Atari 2600 and I still play it sometimes, so I couldn't wait to play this game. It has a lot of my favorites such as Pitfall and Megamania. Even better, it has even more games that I haven't ever played but have always wanted to such as Fishing Derby and Frost Bite.

The graphics of the games is identical to that of the Atari 2600, but that's about all that's exactly the same. I have to admit, it is a bit different trying to control these games with a controller instead of a joystick. Once you get used to it, that won't be a problem. The only major drawback I found in this game is that in some of the ones I have for the Atari 2600 such as Megamania and Pitfall, the sounds aren't the same or they have been left out.

If you grew up with the Atari 2600 or used to play it a lot, I would recommend getting "Activision Classics." But if you haven't ever played the 2600, you might not be too fond of these games. If you're a longtime fan of Atari, this will bring back a lot of great memories.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm ten again! I'm ten again! Oh no, i'm thirty-one., March 17, 2000

By A Customer

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This is a wonderful look back on the way I wasted my early teens. I bought the disc for my 16-year-old brother and we spent the entire night playing Pitfall, Enduro, Chopper Command, River Raid, you name it. I only wish Atari would put together some of their own classics: Joust, Berzerk, Combat, Asteroids, or Space Invaders. Oh no, I'm thirty-one.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but imperfect., July 18, 2000

By A Customer

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

For the money, this is a decent deal; 29 Activision games and 1 Imagic game for less than a buck a pop. As anyone who remembers the Atari will tell you, though, these kinds of games aren't usually engrossing; half the fun is being able to play a game for a few seconds or minutes and then popping in a new game. The more games you have, the more you're likely to do this. So, you'll find yourself constantly stopping games in progress and starting up others...

The overall package has some problems. First, considering the small size of the ROMs, there is no reason Activision couldn't have fit their entire catalogue on here, including Imagic and Absolute games (minus the licensed titles). It might have been difficult to emulate Pitfall II since it contained a separate sound chip, but everything else could have been included easily.

Second, the loading times are bizarre- these games are only 4-8k in size originally; the load times are so long that it seems the emulator is being loaded up fresh every time- this makes switching between games annoying. It would have been a lot more efficient to simply load the emulator into memory first, and then just load a ROM into memory as needed.

Third, an option to use the PSX mouse/trackball or analog/Dual Shock for Kaboom! would have been nice. Kaboom! was a paddle game originally, and digital controls just don't cut it.

Fourth, I would have loved to see some multimedia content. Considering the paucity of the instructions in the manual, scans of the original manual would have been nice; interviews with programmers and/or a multimedia history segment would have been really nice.

For the joystick games (all but Kaboom!), the controls are pretty good. It sometimes would help to have a joystick like the original Atari one, because a control pad doesn't offer the same amount of precision.

Overall, a decent entry in the retro/emulation category. More of a selection than any other title except Activision's Intellivision Classics. A little more polishing and it would have been a 4 star game; as it stands, though, it gets just a 3 for being a plain but competent compilation.